SOURCE IDEAS:

“Mr. Hyde was pale and dwarfish, he gave an impression of deformity without any nameable malformation, he had a displeasing smile, he had borne himself to the lawyers with a sort of murderous mixture of timidity and boldness, and he spoke with a husky, whispering and somewhat broken voice; all these were points against him, but not all of these together could explain the hitherto unknown disgust, loathing and fear with which Mr. Utterson regarded him”(41-2)

“Rather, as there was something abnormal and misbegotten in the very essence of the creature that now faced me — something seizing, surprising and revolting — this fresh disparity seemed but to fit in with and to reinforce it; so that to my interest in the man’s nature and character, there was added a curiosity as to his origins, his life, his fortune and status in the world”(74-5).

SYNTHESIZING COMMENT/ANALYSIS:

Both of these excerpts come from the novel, and the first is from the first instance where Mr. Utterson sees Hyde — I thought that this quote really picks up on the themes we are discussing and could bring back to orient us with Cohen’s theories of the monster as a mixture and uncategorizable. For instance, we see Hyde described with conflicting descriptors such as “timid” and “bold” — but also this idea of a hidden deformity, an unsettling feeling that something is missing. I think we got the monster’s external/physical characteristics in Frankenstein, then shifted to a more inward representation in Jane Eyre. Still, here, it seems to take on the outward physicality again.Yet, I find it interesting that the one example in Cohen of a monster is its enormity, which is reversed here where Hyde is continuously described as small and even, sometimes animal-like, with a quickness. Continuing with the second passage later in the novel, the story’s unfolding has brought even more suspicion to Hyde, and these keywords reminded me of Frankenstein’s

creature when he described the reaction people had to him that he couldn’t understand why. Here, it is almost from the townspeople’s point of view, represented by Mr. Utterson as he observes how he reacts to Hyde’s “essence,” which he finds revolting and surprising. We could discuss the elements here of mystery and these conflictual representations of Hyde in terms of Cohen’s monster theory but also take what we learned from Jane Eyre and maybe connect these descriptions with a less literal notion of what Hyde represents and think about his actions more than just the emphasis on his physical characteristics.

QUESTION:

Keeping in mind what we just explored with Bertha and Jane in Jane Eyre as this mirroring effect and looking into how they are linked — how might we look at the relationship between Mr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde? It seems like there could be a similarity here between the two character’s contrasts and this idea of the inwardness of one and the showcasing outwardly in the other.